Airborne particulates pose an increasing health problem within commercial and residential buildings. Numerous devices and systems have been devised to reduce the airborne particulates by cleaning, or removing dust and particulates from vents within homes and commercial buildings. An example of a vent cleaning system can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,363 (the '363 patent) granted to Franklin, Jr. et al. on Dec. 20, 1988. The vent cleaning system disclosed in the '363 patent includes a housing that encloses a drive motor, a vacuum motor, a vacuum filter and a vacuum bag. The drive motor and the vacuum motor are connected to a hose, which has a flexible shaft throughout its length. One end of the flexible shaft connects to the drive motor and its other end connects to a brush. The drive motor turns the flexible shaft and this in turn rotates the brush.
The inconvenience with prior vent cleaning systems and devices is that they are cumbersome to transport. Furthermore, many of the previously developed cleaning systems lack a necessary means of adjusting a "slip threshold" for a drive motor. In other words, motors often "burn-out" when a rotating tool, driven by the motor, encounters an object which prevents the tool from continued rotation.
Accordingly, a need has arisen in the art for a compact, portable drive device and a drive device having adjustable friction device for use with commercial and residential property ventilation cleaning systems.